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The band Phish has a song on their upcoming album that was inspired by a game involving the Louisville Cardinals men’s basketball team. It is called “The Line” and it is dedicated to Darius Washington Jr. Yes you read that right. Nearly ten years later, there is a song that came from that moment.

Will ford, of Louisville.com, wrote this:

Phish is arguably one of the most well-known bands in the world; and it sounds like they know a bit of Louisville basketball history. Phish is a jam band that some people have called “The Grateful Dead of this generation.” Phish first formed at the University of Vermont in the mid-1980s and has retained a cult following since then with their transcendent live concerts.

They have weaved Louisville into a song called “The Line” that will be released on their new studio album called Fuego to be released on June 24.

When the Louisville Cardinals leave a conference, it is pretty standard for them to win the conference tournament on their way out. Dating all the way back to the Metro conference days, whenever the Cards just like to leave the previous conference something to remember them by. Let’s hope that continues tonight as we exit the American Athletic Conference.

Below are the results of the final conference tournament results for Louisville for the Metro, Conference USA, Big East, and American…

American Standings

From GoCards.com

Louisville will be playing for at least a share of the inaugural American Athletic Conference Championship on Saturday against UConn. If either Louisville or Cincinnati wins and the other loses Saturday, then the winner is the outright regular-season champion and the No. 1 seed.

If both win, then the SMU-Memphis game comes into play. If Louisville, Cincinnati and SMU win, then Louisville gets the top seed (would be 4-0 against SMU/UConn, while Cincinnati would be 2-2). If Louisville, Cincinnati and Memphis win, then a coin flip will determine the 1/2 seeds. Both UC and UofL would be 4-2 against the group of SMU/UConn/Memphis, which would be tied at 12-6.

Chris Jones has been getting a lot of heat on social media about the Memphis game, and probably rightfully so. He didn’t play very well and he forced the issue, a LOT. He took bad shots, drove 1 on 3, and dribbled too much trying to create on his own. But he isn’t the only player on our team to play bad against his hometown team. Earlier in the season, Montrezl Harrell didn’t exactly play great against North Carolina.

We have guys that play with a lot of emotion, and that emotion has gotten the best of them a few times this season. Hopefully if we run into these teams again this season, they play more for the name on the front of the jersey and don’t try to do too much on their own. Getting the win is more important.

It has been almost a full day since the “Meltdown in Memphis” (just came up with that one) so I have had time to gather my thoughts about the game. Actually I pretty much knew soon after it ended how I felt. It was very frustrating to watch the end and how that unfolded, yet after the loss was complete, it didn’t make me lose hope in this team. There are a few reasons, but the main one is this: I don’t get bent out of shape about regular season losses. And to be consistent, I don’t celebrate too much about regular season wins either.

We are Louisville. We don’t storm the court because we are one of the top programs in the country. So what that also means is that we are judged by how we perform in March. Yes, the Memphis game was March 1, but I mean in NCAA Tournament play. We stumbled down the stretch heading into the tournament just two seasons ago, and that is putting it lightly. Think about our last 6 regular season games that season: we lost at home to Syracuse by 1. We beat DePaul in overtime by 8, yes it took overtime to beat DePaul. We lost to Cincinnati and then beat Pittsburgh by 3. On Senior Night, we lost to a terrible South Florida team by 7. We finished out the regular season with another loss to Syracuse, this one on the road. That gave us 9 losses for the regular season (we have 5 right now). What did we do after all of that? Went to Madison Square Garden and won 4 games in a row to win the Big East Tournament, and won another 4 in a row to make it to the Final Four.

I am sitting here after a long days work and as always I can’t sleep. Seeing that Senior Day is coming up on Saturday I thought to myself, wonder what Memphians think about our upcoming rivalry game Saturday. For as long as I can remember, Memphis has been our rival through many, many years and many conferences. The rivalry hasn’t been action packed with memories though. Lavell Boyd’s impossible catch from Chris Redman as time elapsed is the only standout memory for me. (video below) To me the rivalry was always special. I wonder if they feel the same way.

The only way I knew to see how they felt was to wander over to the old message boards. I mean we are 23.5 point favorites Saturday at noon over the 3-6 Memphis Tigers. Normally when we are that big of a favorite the fan bases talk a lot of crap. We are 0-3 on Senior Day under Charlie Strong by a combined 13 points; do they have false hope? So I wandered on over to the Memphis message boards to see what was going on. Here’s a few comments:

The post was titled…….Bowl Eligible…..I swear!

fatherof25: With 3 games left, we must win out to get bowl eligible. We would have to upset Louisville but after that game we have 2 very winnable games against UConn (0 wins) and Temple (1 win). My guess is we get it. What are your predictions.

First off, congrats…..screen name says it all. You must be exhausted

TOGC: As much as I’d love to see us beat our rivals Louisville, I doubt it’s going to happen. We’ll probably lose that one and win the last two. Still, 5 wins is an improvement over last season, especially considering that the AAC has been proven tougher than the old C-USA.

I would agree with that. Even though a lot of people have trashed this conference it ended up being a lot better than most thought

fatherof25:Yea that is the most likely scenario but I’m holding on to the fact that we play to the level of our competition. Look at them Ucf game. If it wasn’t for some bad luck in the last few minutes that’s a win. So while losing to Louisville is likely, you can’t count us out. BTW anyone going to the game?

Seems Very respectful, very level headed so far…….still can’t get over the 25….

TigerNMunford: I am one of the biggest Tiger fans around and if I had seen massive improvements in the offense then I would say we have a good shot against Loserville but I don’t think we have enough to get over that hump at their house. Not saying impossible but an extremely low probability at this point. Defense continues to impress but we are going to need points. I was there that night they flew their BE flag and we creamed them. I won’t give up hope but am glad to see how close we came. MTSU or UCF and we could be in a bowl. Heck, take away all the turnovers and we played Houston as well as everyone else. Win at least the 2 winnable games and give the Crudinals all we can. Team has improved, expectations will be higher next year. All in all, this was better than I expected based on the preseason. Competitive and most folks know they were in a game. More good times to come!

Ahhhh there’s the Loserville reference…..

bleedtigerblue:They need two more recruiting classes, according to the HC. Hope the coaches can find the underrated players like some other teams seem to do. Evaluation and recruiting is Job1. Thay said, we seem to overachieive when playing ranked rival teams in November, just ask Peyton Manning.

Now that’s just a little Overzealous…..and Who’s Thay? Is that Memphis’s war cry like the Saints or the Bengals….

Lastly

Tiger3760:When is the last time we played more then one ranked team in a year? Three are ranked now. We were robbed at MTSU, and after watching that kid’s catch for UCF this weekend and how they beat us, I think they are a team of destiny this year. The SMU game was a stinker, but the defense almost pulled it out. Recruiting is going well, and the freshmen are starting to contribute. IMO, the future is very bright.

Agree with UCF being a team of destiny this year, recruiting isn’t going well, future isn’t bright..

Go Cards!

Only footage of “The Catch” I could find was in this Highlight reel of Lavell’s. Watch it all or go to the 8:09 mark. Sometimes I think because he really only got to play for 1 and a half seasons how great and clutch he really was. #L1C4

Here are the key notes from Coach Pitino’s press conference on Tuesday afternoon. He talks about Gorgui Dieng’s injury, the Memphis game, and the upcoming FIU game and coaching against his son, Richard.

The day was March 12, 2005. The place was the FedEx Forum in Memphis, TN. The 6th ranked Louisville Cardinals were facing the Memphis Tigers in the Conference USA Championship. The Cards were playing for a good NCAA Tournament seed (which they didn’t get), and Memphis was playing to just get into the tournament.

With the big game this Saturday between Louisville and Memphis, I thought it was important to revisit some of the more memorable games from the rivalry. Well, the game from March 1, 1986 is a special one to me, and I wasn’t even born yet. Here is the story…

This Saturday the Cards will travel to Memphis, Tennessee to play the Tigers. And to say Memphis is hyped may be an understatement. It is apparent that Memphis still looks at Louisville as their BIGGEST rival and their obsession with the Cards can at times be creepy but hey what are old rivals for :)